Naslov
What the Mischief is this (Immigrant) Bonnet doing here? Mary Helena Fortune in the Age of Australian Nationalist Metanarrative

Autori
Klepač, Tihana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
Australian Perspectives on Migration / - , 2018, 15-15

Skup
Australian Perspectives on Migration 16th Biennial Conference of GASt

Mjesto i datum
Düsseldorf, Njemačka, 04.10.2018. - 06.10.2018

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Nije recenziran

Ključne riječi
White Australia Policy, Mary Helena Fortune, autobiography

Sažetak
As Russell Ward writes in A Nation for a Continent, the period from about 1870 till the Great War marked the high tide of European, and thus also British, imperialism (4). It was the period of great movement of peoples, thus far unprecedented. It was also a period when most white-skinned people believed in the natural superiority of the white race. In Australia the belief was reflected in a call for national unity which presupposed the Anglo-Saxon race. As the nationalist metanarrative was being formulated in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the nation became increasingly exclusionist. Thus the popular Bulletin in 1893 could proclaim that “The cheap Chinaman, the cheap nigger, and the cheap European pauper [are] to be absolutely excluded” from immigrating to Australia. The movement eventually became a policy with nation-wide legal force titled White Australia policy. In 1850s Irish born Mary Helena Fortune immigrated to Australia via Canada to meet her father on the Australian diggings. This remarkable, eloquent woman produced marvellous memoirs, partly fictionalised, a common Victorian genre, which reveal extraordinary times in Australian history when people of different race, profession and social standing all worked side-by-side and were, as Fortune claims, respected based on character, not nationality or immigrant status. However, Fortune’s descriptions of city life at the close of the century – looking for lodgings or a job – reveal that she felt doubly rejected, as an immigrant and as a woman, her perfectly adjusted bonnet ties and her respectable attire not guaranteeing respect and safety. Therefore, she compares herself to a spider in the webs of the Australian society of the day.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija, Povijest, Interdisciplinarne humanističke znanosti, Književnost

POVEZANOST RADA